Torture, bondage images recovered

COMPUTERS seized from the home of a couple accused of raping and torturing a teenage girl were found to have images of torture and bondage, Toowoomba District Court heard yesterday.

On the fourth day of the trial, police forensic computer examiner Senior Constable Peter Earle told the court he had obtained “thumbnail” images of deleted files which led to websites relating to torture and torture devices.

Some retrieved images which were shown via the court's television screens yesterday depicted naked adult men and women tied up on beds, one man bound and gagged.

Another image was that of two clothed women, one tied to a post and the other standing nearby with a whip.

Crown prosecutor Andrew Anderson told the jury it could be inferred from such images that the couple had a “sexual interest in that kind of activity”.

However, under cross examination by the defendants' barristers Robbie Davies and Phil Hardcastle, Snr Const. Earle conceded no passwords were required to access either of the two computers seized by police and both computers could have been used by anyone.

The man, 60, and woman, 53, are accused by the woman's daughter of molesting, torturing and raping her.

Both defendants deny the alleged incidents and have pleaded not guilty to all charges which include unlawful carnal knowledge, deprivation of liberty, torture, rape and sexual assault (for the man), and deprivation of liberty, torture, indecent treatment of a child, and rape (for the woman).

Neither defendant is named to protect the identity of the complainant who claims she was just 13 when she was tied by rope to a bed at the family's then home on the southern Darling Downs and whipped with a cat o' nine tails by her mother before being raped by her mother's boyfriend.

Now a mother in her early 20s, the complainant woman told the court the whipping had been more painful than childbirth.

She also claims the man had sex with her in the shower at the home around the same time.

Mr Anderson submitted the man had groomed the girl for sex and that on an earlier occasion he had had sex with her in the back seat of a car while the girl's mother sat in the driver's seat.

The defendants are not facing any charges relating to that allegation.